1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a plastic container pack for pourable products, such as liquids or free-flowing fine granules or the like, the plastic container accommodating the product to be packed being externally surrounded by a close-fitting sleeve or jacket of paperboard or paper and at least locally comprising an upper retaining edge for the paperboard jacket.
2. Discussion of Related Art
There are many known packs for pourable products, such as liquids, which consist of two components, namely an inner plastic container--for example a plastic bottle--accommodating the liquid and an outer paperboard jacket which has various uses, for example as a printing surface or the like.
One pack of interest is described, for example, in Applicants' DE 39 21 258-A1. By means of this pack, it is possible to avoid carrying elements on the plastic container itself. U.S. Pat. No. 3,567,104 also describes a two-piece pack in which a large part of the plastic container itself is unable to stand on its own so that the jacket has to perform a standing function. U.S. Pat. No. 3,160,326 refers to standing and carrying-handle functions in a container of interest as part of a two-component pack, the paperboard completely surrounding the inner container. German patent, DE 193 757, discloses a vessel with a protective housing, the vessel being a bottle or jar and the protective housing consisting, for example, of pressed papier mache. Both vessel wall elements are said to be fixedly interconnected.
Conversely, it is also known that vessels can be provided with sleeves acting as printing surfaces, the sleeves themselves being made of a stretchable plastic and being placed around the product to be labeled in the form of a sleeve.
To enable two-component packs consisting of plastic on the one hand and paper or paperboard on the other hand to be recycled, efforts have been made to simplify the separation of the two components as far as possible. One way of doing this is described in Applicants' above-cited DE-OS 39 21 258.
The problem addressed by the present invention is to enable a plastic container to be readily equipped with a printable and easily removable paperboard jacket. According to the invention, the solution to this problem is characterized in that, in the transitional zone between its base and side walls, the plastic container is provided with detent ramps forming retaining shoulders and, in the in-use position, the paperboard jacket forms an encircling sleeve which is held in position between the retaining shoulders by being pushed over the detent ramps.
This method of fixing the plastic jacket or the paper or paperboard sleeve means that the sleeve does not have to be glued to the container itself, but instead is directly fixed via the physical configuration of the container. After the sleeve has been pushed over the detent ramps to bear against the upper retaining shoulders, it is held in position on the surface of the plastic container in such a way that it cannot be lost. In the case of round plastic containers in particular, it does not matter whether the sleeve turns relative to the plastic container on the surface thereof.
It is obvious that the inclinations of the ramps may differ according to the stability of the plastic container to be jacketed. Regardless, they must be made in such a way that the sleeve is not destroyed when it is pushed over the ramps. In addition, thermoplastic containers are sufficiently resilient to ensure that the sleeve can be pushed over the ramps without difficulty.